Al-Harith ibn Abd Allah al-Azdi

Al-Harith ibn Abd Allah al-Azdi, also referred to in sources as al-Harith ibn Abd, al-Harith ibn Amr or al-Harith ibn Abd Amr (fl. 665–677) was the Umayyad governor of Basra for four months in early 665 under Caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680). Later, he served as the governor of his home territory of Palestine and/or the commander of Palestine's troops in the mid-670s.

Life

He was a tribesman of the Azd from Palestine,[1] where the Azd made up a significant proportion of the district's Arab population.[2]

In the spring of 665 Mu'awiya appointed al-Harith as governor of Basra in place of Abd Allah ibn Amir. Al-Harith made Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn Ghaylan the head of his shurta (select troops). According to al-Tabari (d. 923), al-Harith had been appointed by Mu'awiya as a placeholder to make way for Ziyad ibn Abihi, who became governor four months after al-Harith.[3]

The historians Patricia Crone and Moshe Gil identified him as the "Harith ibn Abd" mentioned as the governor of Palestine under the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680) in the Arabic and Greek papyri of Nitzana, dated to October 674–February 677.[1][4] The traditional Muslim sources mention him as the commander of the troops of Palestine under Mu'awiya.[5]

References
  1. Crone 1980, p. 227, note 235.
  2. Crone 1994, p. 26.
  3. Morony 1987, p. 76.
  4. Gil 1997, p. 76, note 1.
  5. Gil 1997, p. 76.

Bibliography
  • Crone, Patricia (1980). Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52940-9.
  • Crone, Patricia (1994). "Were the Qays and Yemen of the Umayyad Period Political Parties?". Der Islam. 71: 1–57. doi:10.1515/islm.1994.71.1.1. S2CID 154370527.
  • Gil, Moshe (1997) [1983]. A History of Palestine, 634–1099. Translated by Ethel Broido. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-59984-9.
  • Morony, Michael G., ed. (1987). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XVIII: Between Civil Wars: The Caliphate of Muʿāwiyah, 661–680 A.D./A.H. 40–60. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-87395-933-9.
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